Doohan wins F2 sprint race in Hungary, Fittipaldi is 3rd and Drugovich 4th

The first of the two Formula 2 races of the weekend in Hungary was won by the one who started from pole position: Jack Doohan. On Saturday afternoon, Doohan was the leader, but he did not win from start to finish. From the moment he regained the lead, however, he was no longer threatened.

The start of the pole position was difficult. Jack saw Enzo Fittipaldi take the lead and had to make sure he did not fall behind Jüri Vips. A few corners later, when he was pushing Fittipaldi, he saw the Brazilian drive off the track and open the door to regain control of the sprint race and follow him to the finish. It was Doohan's second win of the season.

Vips also took advantage of Fittipaldi's mistake at the end of the first lap to hold on to second place, while Enzo was third. At one point, it looked as if Fittipaldi would attack Vips at the end, but the high tire wear in the final part of the sprint race greatly reduced the possibility of captures across the grid.

Felipe Drugovich took fourth place and was a winner of the day, since the rivals in the fight for the title didn't score. Much in part to an incident with Felipe at the start. Drugovich was side-by-side with Logan Sargeant and Dennis Hauger, who jumped in. A touch between the three caused Hauger to spin, broke Sargeant's front wing, and forced Théo Pourchaire, who was coming exactly behind, to leave the track to avoid the contact. Sargeant dropped out, while Pourchaire fell to 16th place and managed to climb up to 9th, where he finished.

Frederik Vesti was fifth, and together with Liam Lawson, Marcos Armstrong, and Ayumu Iwasa rounded out the list of those who scored at least one point. Behind Pourchaire, Olli Caldwell was tenth.

With the result, Drugovich now has a 44-point lead in the championship before the main race. On Sunday, Iwasa will start from pole position and will have Armstrong, Drugovich, Pourchaire, Sargeant, Vips, Vesti, Hauger, Fittipaldi, and Doohan in the top-10.

GRANDE PRÊMIO follows LIVE and INREAL TIME all the activities of the Formula 1 Hungarian Grand Prix weekend. On Sunday, the main race is scheduled for 6:35 am [GMT-3].

Check out how the race went:

After a day with several weather changes for Formula 3, W Series and Formula 1, F2 arrived at the moment when the rain no longer looked so threatening. On the contrary: with a dry track and sunny skies, the asphalt reached 32°C. It wasn't a very high temperature, but it was the highest on Saturday.

Jack Doohan started from pole according to the top-10 inversion system. Enzo Fittipaldi was next to him, completing the front row. The pole position for the main race, Ayumu Iwasa, was 10th. The championship leader Felipe Drugovich was seventh, just behind Théo Pourchaire and Logan Sargeant, the two real rivals for the title. The Frenchman was sixth, while the American started fifth.

And the start was good. Fittipaldi started well and left Doohan behind, taking the lead. In the middle of the pack, Drugovich dived to the inside and formed a three wide at turn one. Felipe was on the inside, with Sargeant in the middle and Dennis Hauger on the outside. Only the Brazilian escaped, because Sargeant touched them both and broke his front wing. End of the race for both, and a safety car on the track. Porchaire was right behind and had to leave the track to avoid contact. He ended up dropping to 16th place.

Before stopping everything, however, Fittipaldi opened up too much and passed out of one of the corners, allowing Doohan to regain the lead. The Brazilian dropped to third, behind Jüri Vips. When the restart came at the start of lap five, these were the top three. Frederik Vesti, Drugovich, Jehan Daruvala, Iwasa, Marcos Armstrong, Liam Lawson, and Richard Verschoor completed the top-10.

Roberto Merhi was the only driver on the track with softer tires in this short race that does not require overtaking. The start kept the positions up front, but there was contact at the back of the pack between Roy Nissany and Clemént Novalak. Both had damage to their cars and had to go into the pits to change their wings. Novalak would soon receive 10s punishment for causing the collision.

Fittipaldi was fast enough to start opening the DRS and attack Vips on the seventh of 28 laps. The Estonian held on and relieved the initial pressure, but he didn't have much to look forward to either, as Doohan was opening up about 1s5. Drugovich had already passed Vesti to take fourth place in the race.

Vips had speed and was cutting into Doohan's lead after setting the best lap of the race, but was still far from attacking. Meanwhile, at the back, Pourchaire tried to climb the field and passed Merhi, David Beckmann - with a beautiful overtake - and Marino Sato. Despite this, he was still in 13th place.

With the race in its half, tire wear began to act up for some drivers. Drugovich, for example, stopped his tendency to pull over Fittipaldi and started to control his own pace in order not to let Vesti threaten him. Enzo, in turn, followed close to Vips and seemed to wait for a gap to dive with DRS.

The good fights were not in the front-runners, but at the end of the points zone. Daruvala attacked Armstrong, and the two locked tires side by side for sixth place. They even touched the New Zealander's right front tire. Thus, Daruvala passed, and Armstrong became the bait for Lawson, who quickly took seventh place.

With three laps to go, it was clear that Doohan would be the winner, because he opened the lead and had a 2sec advantage. Drugovich could even open the DRS on the last lap to pass Fittipaldi, but he couldn't overtake. The same thing happened to Iwasa over Armstrong, but Marcus managed to hold on to seventh place.

That's how it ended. Doohan, who had won a race in England, was back on top of the podium.

F2 2022, Hungarian GP, Hungaroring, Sprint Race, Final Result: